Charleroi woman celebrates 100th birthday

CHARLEROI – Chances are that Alice Sheets has taught many bakers and cake decorators in the Mon Valley a thing or two through the years. And that’s no small feat, considering the Charleroi woman turned 100 years old on April 1.
Back in the day, when shoppers crammed downtown streets, Mrs. Sheets would stand in a storefront window in California baking and decorating cakes as passersby would watch – and learn. She also taught cake-decorating classes at the YMCA and in local schools.
“Most cake decorators and bakers around here took cake-decorating lessons from her,” said her grandson, Wesley White, adding that it was his grandmother who influenced his decision to become a chef.
Even so, he is not allowed to cook in Mrs. Sheets’ house. “It’s her kitchen,” White said.
Mrs. Sheets is perhaps best known for her novelty cakes, with family and friends from near and far frequently clamoring for cakes made by the self-taught baker. When Mrs. Sheets’ niece got married in Detroit, Mich., several years ago, she made her a church cake.
“She’s still raving about it,” said Mrs. Sheets’ daughter, Darla White.
Mrs. Sheets doesn’t bake cakes anymore, but with a little help, she still makes pies and bread.
Mrs. Sheets was born April 1, 1917, in California, the fourth of Walter and Alice Sample’s six children.
She moved to Charleroi following her graduation from East Pike Run High School, and was working in a small store on the hill near her family’s home when she caught the attention of Earl Sheets. He couldn’t stop dropping by to see the attractive young woman, and in 1937, the couple married.
While her husband worked at Allenport Steel, Mrs. Sheets kept busy as a housewife, mother and civic volunteer.
The couple had two daughters, Darla, who married Ellis White, and Lorena, who married William Feevey. Mrs. Sheets also has five grandchildren, five great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren, and, according to Darla, she had a hand in raising them all.
Nevertheless, Mrs. Sheets still found time to be actively involved in church and several other community organizations, and she has remained devoted to her family, taking care of Darla seven years ago, at age 93, when her daughter had back surgery, and her church, where she taught Sunday school and served in many other roles.
And, appropriately enough, it was at First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Charleroi that family and friends celebrated Mrs. Sheets’ milestone birthday on April 2. Her cake, which she did not bake, was decorated with her favorite flowers: yellow roses.
“It was wonderful. I got to go to the church that I went to after I got married,” Mrs. Sheets said.
Mrs. Sheets can’t attend church as much as she’d like anymore because she has difficulty walking. She has a broken femur in her right leg and is unable to walk without a walker, and she often uses a wheelchair. Doctors will not operate because of her age. She also has a pacemaker and hearing aids, but, overall, she is in pretty good health.
“I don’t feel 100,” Mrs. Sheets said.
And the secret to her longevity?
“I just kept doing things that nobody else would do … and I did a lot of church work,” she said.
Mrs. Sheets joined the women’s auxiliary at Monongahela Valley Hospital and has been recognized as a lifetime member. In addition, she belonged to the PTA, Homemakers, Order of the Eastern Star, Shriners and Rainbow Girls, and was assistant state director of AARP.
Mrs. Sheets also has ties to the Observer-Reporter. Her grandfather, William Sample, was a printer, and when he and William B. Brown stopped at The Sign of the Swan in 1808 in the village of Washington on their way to Kentucky, tavern owner John Rettig convinced the two men to set up their shop in the basement of his business – currently the Union Grill.
On Aug. 15, 1808, The Reporter debuted as a weekly newspaper. In 1903, The Reporter was purchased by Observer Publishing Co., which, in 1967, merged The Reporter and The Washington Observer, another daily newspaper that began in 1871 as The Monthly Advance, to become the Observer-Reporter.
Until two years ago, Mrs. Sheets lived by herself. But then Darla moved in with Mrs. Sheets, and it didn’t take her long to understand why “Daddy always called her Johnny Bull.”
To this day, Mrs. Sheets is one tough, stubborn woman.
In the middle of the night not too long ago, Darla couldn’t find her mother. Except for a light in Mrs. Sheets’ bedroom, the house was coal black. After searching for a few minutes, Darla finally found her mother sitting on the couch, managing somehow to navigate from her bedroom through the hallway and the dining room in the dark.
“I wanted somebody to come to me or I would go find them,” Mrs. Sheets said. “Instead of praising me, she gave me the devil.”
Regardless, Mrs. Sheets remains close to her daughter – and the rest of her family.
“If they need anything or want anything, there’s the door,” Mrs. Sheets said.